Psychological researchers are working to understand why people get lost inside buildings as outlined in a feature in the journal, Current Directions in Psychological Science. The research revolves around spatial skills and how we build a cognitive map as a representation of the spaces that we visit. When entering a new building it’s important to pay attention to the right cues in order to make your way out again.
“If you paid attention to the sequence of turns along the path, then you may have difficulty because you need to remember to reverse the sequence, and this becomes increasingly difficult as the number of turns increases. But instead, if you paid more attention to the objects that you passed, then you may navigate back to the front door by going from one familiar object to another without considering the sequence of turns. This strategy will work, as long as you can always see a familiar object. If you get lost and enter an unexplored part of the building, you will have difficulty finding your way back,” says Laura A. Carlson of the University of Notre Dame, first author of the article.
The difference in spatial skills means that architects are often the wrong ones to help those with lesser skills to navigate the buildings that they create, or to design buildings that are easily navigable. Psychologists and cognitive scientists are poised to fill in these gaps to simplify indoor navigation and to help develop strategies for the navigation of confusing indoor space.
You can read more about this research here, and view the embedded video below.
